St. Lawrence raceway plan runs off the track
File this one along with the Bion feedlot-ethanol project, the aquarium, and the supercollider under Lofty Economic Development Projects in St. Lawrence County Gone Bad (LEDPSLCGB).
The plan to build a “NASCAR-style” racetrack in the wilds of northern St. Lawrence County goes at least as far back as 2006, according to our archives. It was going to include a drag strip, an 18-hole golf course, a skeet-shooting range, and three hotels in a themed village with restaurants, not to mention the possibility of class 2 video slot machines tied in with the Akwesasne Mohawks’ gaming operations.
Well, according to the Watertown Daily Times, the plan looks pretty dead. The principal investor, Agape World, is accused of using a Ponzi scheme. St. Lawrence County is foreclosing on the 900 acres near the Brasher State Forest for unpaid taxes:
Prosecutors have accused Agape World owner Nicholas Cosmo, Lake Grove, of defrauding clients of about $400 million by paying off older investors with money that came from new accounts while blowing funds on online futures trading. His assets, including a $2.15 million loan to Northway Island in 2007, were frozen last year.
Out of all the pipe dreams of Saint Lawrence County, this one always, ALWAYS smelled rotten and personally you'd have to be quite high to actually believe such an entertainment complex would ever be built in this region. Not that it couldn't happen, but what I didn't get was the fact it was located in Brasher, no offense to them but especially that section of Brasher isn't really 'pretty' for the region. Its old farm land and ancient marshes. Why would you build such a place there when to the south you have the Adirondacks and north you have the mighty Saint Lawrence. I know there isn't overly too much shoreline property they could use, and that it was 'sound' issues (I've lived with the sound of Frogtown, quiet night in Massena Center you can hear them going).The Bion project made more sense, and I think that deal with just more rolled over due to our county politicians, it was namely lack of cooperation and not having the proper infrastructure to handle them, namely our rotted railroads.The Aquarium could have been real too but I think all on all that was just plain lack of interest, entertainment quality but all in all, lack of interest.But this Nascar track, I filed that in the same folder as Mike Slavin's Phantom Company in the Caymen Islands.
(ps – there's an html error with firefox, everything from N 18-Hole Golf Course is bold and 3 sizes bigger than everything else, up until the end of 'Unpaid Taxes:'.
I can't believe after all this time people are still talking about "the racetrack"….it will never be so let it be! We're sick of hearing about all the changes that never come….Aquarium, Croc center, River revamp, blah, blah, blah,,,,,,,,,,,,,
When St. Lawrence County realizes that economic development is not a giant goose from elsewhere that flies in and lays golden eggs, we will all be better off. Rather than looking elsewhere for the goose, which is what our economic developers would have us believe is the way to a better St. Lawrence County, we need to look to ourselves, our neighbors, our small businesses, and our cultural and educational offerings. When we are happy living in St. Lawrence County and we project this image to the world, others will want to join us!